


All I Needed to Know

by airshipmechanic



Series: The Magnificent Borderlands [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Borderlands AU, M/M, Relationship Advice, faraday is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18650308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airshipmechanic/pseuds/airshipmechanic
Summary: Takes place in the Borderlands AU, but this one probably requires the least Borderlands knowledge of any of them. After the battle at Rose Creek, Faraday and Vasquez start traveling together and sleeping together. That starts to turn into love, but the question is: will Faraday learn to admit it before Vasquez gets done with waiting around?





	All I Needed to Know

Joshua Faraday had never been one to take things seriously. He learned very early on that caring was a sure path to pain. He grew up out in the Dust, a wide expanse of desert that was nothing but sand, bandits, spiderants, Death Races, and more sand. His parents were both drunks from the Zaford clan who got themselves blown up by the time Joshua was eleven years old. Most of the friends he had as a kid were gone, too, whether to the war with the Hodunk clan, the bandit gangs (joining them or killed by them), or getting too drunk and wandering out to get eaten by a spiderant queen. He lost his home when he got Old Man Zaford good and pissed off, and so he’d been truly on his own since he was sixteen. 

The lesson Josh had taken from his early life was that nothing was permanent, and that trying to hold on was stupid. The trick was to just have a good time with what you could and avoid getting too worked up about the rest of it. Death came for everybody eventually, loss and pain were inevitable, and getting attached to things was a trap. That developed into a habit of treating virtually everything as either a joke or a game, and so far, it had served him well. He was still alive, wasn’t he? Down an arm and an eye, sure, but the metal and cybernetics actually looked pretty badass. He’d been a hero at Rose Creek, and he had a reputation not only for being tough as nails, but a hilarious good time. Josh took wild risks physically, but he kept his heart well guarded, and it was working just great. 

Working great for him, anyway. It wasn’t so easy on Vasquez. 

Alejandro Vasquez had grown up rough, too, and he tended to come off the same way Joshua did: an easy-going joker who didn’t get ruffled easily. And it was true, he didn’t let much bother him. Most things, Vasquez thought, just weren’t worth the trouble. The things he did care about, though, he thought it was important to show how much he cared. The same “everything is temporary” feeling that made Josh so guarded made Vasquez put all his feelings out there for anyone to see. Their time was not guaranteed, and you never knew what might be the last time you saw someone. 

That was even more true for him with Joshua, whom he’d come so close to losing. Then, they had only been friends, recent acquaintances who found they shared a sense of humor and some physical attraction. Even so, Vasquez remembered with brutal clarity the way Josh had looked after charging up on the Constructor bot with a dozen corrosive bombs. He’d been broken, bleeding out, his arm gone, screaming with the pain—it had been painful to see even so early in their acquaintance. Vas never wanted to experience anything like that again. He knew who he’d thrown his hat in with, though, and knew that Josh was going to keep on taking massive, stupid risks no matter what he said. Therefore, Vasquez thought the only solution was to enjoy the time they had as fully as possible. 

At first that had just meant sex and drinking, card games and working together. They had fun together, whether it was shooting their way through a gang to take their loot, getting smashed in some ugly bar and telling stories that were mostly lies but still hilarious, or hooking up in the back of Josh’s Lancer. It was all a lighthearted good time, a celebration of lives that they hadn’t been sure they’d get to keep living, and it was good. 

Some months into their unofficial arrangement, Vasquez found that his feelings had grown. He didn’t just like Josh and like fucking him – he really _cared_. He’d find himself looking over at Josh as he drove, the sunlight making his golden-red hair glow, singing along badly with some song on the radio, and Vasquez would feel a rush of affection so powerful it threatened to overwhelm him. Josh would fall asleep draped all over him, producing enough body heat to warm a whole settlement, and it filled Vasquez with a sense of peace and contentment that he hadn’t felt in years. He worried about Josh when they got into a particularly tough fight, and he put as much effort into watching Josh’s back as he did his own, probably more. In short, what had begun as something light and easy had become something deeper. Vasquez had, whether he planned to or not, fallen in love with this crazy Pandoran, and there wasn’t a damn thing to do but enjoy it. 

That worked, for a while. Vasquez didn’t hesitate to express his affection, and at first, Josh seemed to thrive on it. He accepted the casual kisses and touches readily, like he’d been starving for this all his life. He’d always liked snuggling after sex, for all that with him it tended to be more playful than anything else. But then _words_ had come into it, and that was when Josh started to get cagey. 

“Love you, _guero_ ,” Vasquez murmured, the two of them both on their way to sleep. He didn’t necessarily expect that Josh would respond in kind – hoped, maybe, but didn’t expect. When he didn’t, Vasquez took it in stride and drifted on off to sleep. 

The second time he said it, they were in the car, laughing at a silly string of jokes and one of Josh’s dramatic performances singing along with the radio. Vasquez had still been catching his breath from the gales of laughter when he looked over at Josh’s face and the feeling hit so hard that he just had to say it. 

“God, I love you,” he said, grinning wide enough to take up his whole face. 

“’course you do, I’m amazing!” Josh laughed, and someone who _hadn’t_ been spending more or less every waking minute with him for several months might not have noticed the tension in his shoulders or the anxiety in his eyes. Vasquez couldn’t help but see it, though. He knew Joshua Faraday’s moods by now, knew the tells that the other man would swear he didn’t have. Josh was definitely not comfortable with hearing that Vasquez loved him. 

But Vasquez knew Faraday had scars, and that not all of them were physical. He’d been beat up a lot by life. There were stories Josh told like they were jokes that weren’t actually funny – the time Joshua’s father had locked him in the basement and he’d made friends with a rat, for instance. There were times when he was drinking because it was easier than thinking. There were the nights he woke up with a startled shout and then held on a little tighter to Vasquez as he tried to go back to sleep, though he’d never admit to either. Those were reasons enough for Vasquez to think some patience was in order. Joshua wasn’t leaving, after all, or expressing his discomfort directly. It seemed to Vasquez that Joshua was merely a little anxious; given time, he was sure to understand that Vasquez’s feelings for him were genuine and that he wasn’t going anywhere. 

They had been traveling and sleeping together for a year when a job brought them out to the Highlands, not too far from Rose Creek. They stopped in to pay their respects to Emma, Teddy, and Jack and Leni, and then after the job, went up the mountain to pass some time at the comfortable little house that was the Robicheaux-Rocks home. 

Goodnight and Billy were well and truly retired. They’d been patiently saving the money they earned on prize fights, courier runs, extermination jobs, and gambling scams for years, and after Rose Creek they put most of it into building a home. It was out of the way, hidden enough to keep clear of anybody who wanted to talk shop, but close enough to town to have friendly society within relatively easy reach. Goodnight still had an audience for the stories he _liked_ telling, with no obligation to tell the ones he didn’t, and Billy could still find a game of dice or a fancy shooting contest when the mood struck. Goodnight had taken to making furniture and doing a bit of tailoring, using his sharp eye to create rather than to destroy. Billy had a garden behind the house that he tended with the same meticulous precision that he once used for assassinations. 

Staying with them was a pleasure, simply because the two of them seemed so happy. The tension that used to knot Goodnight’s shoulders had melted away, and there were no more dark circles of sleeplessness under his eyes. Billy’s demeanor had softened a little – still quiet, but smiles and laughter both came more readily now. The four of them spent the evening drinking and playing cards, swapping stories, catching each other up on the time since their last meeting. It was a good night, and it had Vasquez in a good mood when they left the next morning, heading off to the Frozen Wastes to collect their bounty and look for the next job. 

“Think that’ll ever be us?” he mused, feet up on the dashboard. 

“You and me, retired?” Josh laughed. “No way. They can have their garden and fluffy bed and all that shit. You and me’ll stay badasses forever.” 

Put like that, Vasquez could think that it sounded like fun. He could see the attraction in Billy and Goodnight’s quiet life, and it obviously suited them, but he knew that wasn’t where he was at the moment. It might be someday, but not for a while yet. He didn’t know if Joshua’s “be badasses forever” plan was actually workable, but if it meant spending the rest of his life with Joshua, it might be just the thing. 

“Oh, are you planning to go back up that mountain and tell Billy Rocks he’s not a badass anymore?” Vasquez teased. 

“Hell no! I like my head right where it’s at, attached to my shoulders, thank you very much,” Josh laughed. “Not for any amount of crumpets, and you know how much I like crumpets, would I say to Billy Rocks’ face that he’s not a badass. But you know what I mean – that whole hang up your holster, put the rifle over the fireplace, plant some sunflowers in the back yard thing…it’s just not me. Can’t say as I can see you doin’ it, either.” 

Vasquez shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no,” he said. “Not now, I know that. Not soon, either. Someday…eh, perhaps. Goody and Billy are…what, ten years older than we are? Check with me again in a decade and we’ll see where we are.” 

“A decade?” Josh laughed, and this time there was a trace of discomfort in it. “What makes you think I’ll even know how to get hold of you in a decade?” 

“Why wouldn’t you?” Vasquez asked. Suddenly the conversation felt much more serious. They weren’t talking about silly castles in the clouds now or theoretical retirement plans. Now they were talking about _them_. He sat up and took his feet down from the dashboard, no longer feeling much like lounging.

“It’s ten years!” Josh appeared baffled to the point of finding it hilarious, the idea that anything that was now would also be in ten years. “That’s practically a lifetime! I mean, ten years ago, I was driving the Death Race circuit.” 

“Ten years is only a lifetime to ten-year-olds,” Vasquez pointed out. “Maybe also to twelve-year-olds, they probably do not remember much before being two.” 

“The point is, there’s no way of knowing what anything’s gonna be like in ten years,” Josh said, brushing by the obvious logic. “Maybe we’ll both be dead. Maybe I’ll be dead and you’ll be on a quest for vengeance against the Rat King that killed me. Maybe you’ll get sick of my shit and go back to Artemis and I’ll fulfill my childhood dream of defeating all comers in the Torgue Arena. Anything could happen!”

“If anything could happen, why do you assume the worst in all of those ideas?” Vasquez asked. Josh was still laughing, as usual refusing to take a serious conversation seriously, but Vasquez looked more curious than anything else. A little concerned, maybe. 

“Because that’s just how life goes, Ale.” He gave the steering wheel a little thump, like he was about to start drumming on it and stopped. “You expect things to work out, you’re gonna get disappointed. You expect to get eaten by the Rat King, then all the surprises are nice ones. Best not to get attached.” 

It wasn’t what Vasquez had been hoping to hear. One of those unpleasant surprises that Faraday was going on about, he supposed. “So…say your life surprises you,” Vasquez said. “Say you don’t get eaten by the Rat King, don’t die in an arena fight, and you get surprised by your life being good. Happy. What would it look like?” 

“Hm…” Faraday appeared to think it over carefully. “Gonna have to go with a full set of upgrades for Ethel and Maria, unlimited cash, an open bar tab at every bar and saloon on Pandora, and a sweet Eridium-purple paint job for the Lancer, ‘cause say what you will about Goodnight Robicheaux, that man has a sweet-looking Runner. Maybe a crash pad in Sanctuary, so I could stop in and sleep near a good bar whenever I feel like it.” 

“And that’s it?” Vasquez schooled his voice carefully, keeping all the disappointment away. He had such hopes that if he could get Faraday to imagine what a good life would look like, there might be room for him in it. 

“Yeah, that’d be a good setup,” Joshua replied. “Exactly the kind of thing that I do _not_ expect, because expectations are for idiots, but if we’re fantasizing, that’s what I’d go with.” 

It wasn’t true, not really. Not that Josh had any notions of retirement, but any adventures he went on, he wanted them to be with the man beside him. But what would happen if he said that aloud? What else would he have to admit, if he admitted that? What would he stand to lose? Whereas if he just kept his big mouth shut and let his partner give what he was willing without him _asking_ for anything, they might be able to go along just fine like they were. 

If he’d said any of that to Vasquez, it would have been some comfort. It would have been something to worry about, too, but he would at least have known that the problem wasn’t that Josh didn’t love him. The problem was that Josh was scared. Without knowing all that, Vasquez had to consider the possibility that he might be taking all of this much more seriously than Joshua was. And if that was the case, then he had to consider how long he was willing to wait. 

Vasquez wasn’t one for real deadlines. With him, “how long are you willing to wait” would never be attached to a date or a length of time. The deadline would be a feeling, a moment in which he was finally convinced that however much Joshua Faraday liked him, he would never love him. Then it would be time to go. 

So Vasquez set thoughts of the future aside, and went back to living in the moment. He told Josh that he loved him regularly, even though he didn’t get to hear the words back, because he wanted Josh to know that his affection was real and steady and safe. He kept up his little gestures of affection – fingertips stroking the back of Josh’s neck as he drove, idle kisses on the way out of a room, little endearments and jokes in his native language. The sex remained good – the sex had always been good – and sometimes Vasquez would say _I love you_ then, too. 

They managed another six months like that, before Vasquez began to feel the weight of disappointment sinking lower and heavier on his shoulders. He had been trying for a long time, and getting nothing in return. He had opened himself up, made himself vulnerable to being hurt, and Joshua had never done anything like the same in return. He remained closed-off as ever, keeping up his charming façade and seldom giving any more. They had reached a point that Vasquez was starting to wonder if he was wasting his time. 

“Let’s visit Billy and Goody,” Vasquez suggested out of the blue, some time later. It had been nine months since their last trip, almost two years since they’d begun traveling together. 

Faraday shrugged and agreed – he liked visiting their old friends, and they always had good liquor to share. Besides, Ale had seemed a little off in these last few days. Probably he just needed a break, and Billy and Goody’s place was about as good as it got for taking a break. 

Upon their arrival, everything was the same as always. They had dinner, they drank, they played a few rounds of poker, they laughed and caught up and told stories. They were well into it when Vasquez asked Billy to take him on a tour of the garden. 

“In the dark?” Faraday asked, puzzled. 

“I have some night-bloomers,” Billy said, already standing. He did not invite Faraday to join them – while Faraday wasn’t wildly perceptive, Billy was already getting a good sense that Vasquez needed to talk about something to someone other than Faraday. Vas had been that person for Billy, once, and he was glad to be able to return the favor. 

The two of them went outside, leaving Goodnight and Joshua inside alone. “C’mon, help me clear up this table,” Goody said, standing and taking his own dishes. 

“I was gonna!” Josh protested as he picked his dishes up. “You just got up ‘fore I got the chance to offer.” 

“Mea culpa,” Goodnight said with a roll of his eyes. “Mea maxima culpa.” 

“…the fuck’s that mean?” 

Goodnight gave him a withering look. “I reckon the translation you would understand is _my bad_.” 

“You could’ve just said my bad, then.” Joshua dumped one set of dishes into the sink and picked up another while Goodnight did the same. 

“Yes, but that would be boring.” Goodnight shrugged and turned the water in the sink on. “So, what was it again that brought y’all out this way?” 

“Nothing, really,” Faraday admitted, opening another beer and grabbing up a dish cloth. “Ale just said ‘hey, let’s go see Billy and Goody’ and I figured why not? No job or anything tied to it.” 

“Seems like he’s got something on his mind,” Goodnight remarked, then added, “I’ll wash, you dry.” 

“Beats the shit outta me,” Faraday said. “I mean, yeah, he does seem like he’s thinking a lot lately, but damned if I know what about. He ain’t tellin’ me nothin’.” 

“Really?” Goodnight raised an eyebrow, briefly looking up from the dish he’d begun scrubbing. “Seems odd, seeing as how y’all’ve been together…what, two years now? Close to, anyway. He usually that tight-lipped when something’s bothering him?” 

“No, and that’s the thing that’s weird about it,” Josh said. “Normally, he’s having a problem, he lays it right out there. We talk about serious shit all the time.” Vasquez talked about serious shit. Josh made jokes about serious shit, but that seemed close enough to him. 

“Mm…so what’d you fuck up?” Goody asked with a wry smile. 

“What? I didn’t do nothin’!” 

“You sure about that?” Goody asked. “I’ve been with Billy going on a dozen years now, and I can tell you it is absolutely possible to fuck up while traipsing along, blithely unaware that you have fucked up.” 

“I fuck up all the time, but it’s always obvious! Usually something’ll be on fire, Ale’ll be cussing a blue streak in two or three languages, probably reminding me that he told me not to do exactly the thing I did—” 

“That’s not the kind of fucking up I mean.” Goodnight rolled his eyes, wondering if there was any way in which Faraday had matured beyond the grade-school level. “Did you do or say something that he might have found hurtful?” 

“What?” Josh laughed. “God, no. Look, we don’t have that kind of relationship. I mean, yeah, obviously we’re working together and sleeping together and all that, but we’re not all gooey and feelings and shit like that. We’re just…you know, we’re good together. If I said something or did something he really didn’t like, something bad enough for him to want to drive six hours to go see Billy’s glowing mushrooms or whatever the fuck, he’d just leave. So long, it’s been great, have a nice life, never talk to me again, the end.” 

Goodnight managed to avoid actually dropping the dish he was working on his shock, but his scrubbing slowed and finally stopped as he listened to Faraday’s incredibly, wildly wrong perception of his own relationship. Goodnight was _stunned_ , because despite his generally low opinion of Faraday’s good sense, he didn’t think the man was actually this foolish. 

“Joshua…” Goodnight was giving him an _extremely_ judgmental look, the kind you had to go to college to learn. “ _You_ may feel that you are engaging in a light and breezy two-year fling, but I am quite certain that Alejandro is not. That man loves you.” 

“Sure, he _says_ that—” Faraday began. 

“Have you ever known him to say things he doesn’t mean?” Goodnight asked pointedly. “And I’m not talking about the tall tales we all toss around when we’re drinking. I mean the real stuff.” 

“…no,” Faraday reluctantly admitted. “But, look, even if he does love me right now, eventually he’s gonna get tired of me. I’m gonna blow up the wrong thing, or need help oiling the joints in my fake fingers one too many times, or the ECHO-eye’s gonna creep him out real good, or I’ll say some really dumb shit, and he’s just gonna be done. There’s no sense in thinkin’ he won’t.” 

Hearing that made Goodnight feel genuinely sad for the younger man. He crossed his arms, leaning on the countertop. “How much shit do you figure I’ve put Billy through over the years?” 

“Well, I didn’t bring my shitometer that measures exact amounts of shit, so—” 

“A lot, Joshua,” Goody said, not letting Faraday run off on a joking tangent. “A whole lot, and most of it worse than blowing up the wrong thing. Billy’s stuck by me through all of it, even when I really did not deserve it, because he loves me. I used to live in daily terror that any minute he was gonna change his mind, but he never has, not even when I was at my worst in the very lowest depths of despair. But you know what the one thing that might’ve run him off was? If he thought that I didn’t love him every bit as much. Alejandro knows you’d take a bullet for him, but you’d do that for a lot of people – we’ve all seen it. If you don’t want to lose him, you’d better let him know he means more than that, because _that’s_ the kind of shit people get too tired of to stand anymore.” 

“Just wash the damn dishes,” Faraday muttered. He didn’t know how to respond, because good god that was a lot to think about. He’d never allowed himself to believe that someone might care enough to actually want to keep him. No one ever had before, after all. Why would there suddenly be an exception now? Goodnight was right, though – Ale _did_ put up with a lot of shit from him, frequently with a smile and a laugh. And Faraday knew how hard Goody had when they first met, but if Billy’s affection had ever faltered, he’d never shown it. All this time, Faraday had been trying to protect himself; had he actually been setting himself up for exactly what he feared? 

Goody was satisfied that he’d made his point, so he got back into the dishes. As an experienced self-saboteur, Goodnight knew what a man trying to wreck his own life up looked like, and right now, that looked like Joshua Faraday. Goodnight only hoped that Faraday would see the sense in what he’d said and maybe do something about it before it was too late.  
The two normally chatty men were uncharacteristically quiet as Goodnight scrubbed and rinsed and then handed them off to Faraday to dry and put away. Billy and Vasquez returned near the end of the task. 

“Ah, our timing is perfect!” Vasquez declared with his usual easy smile. Faraday looked back over his shoulder at him, noting that Vasquez looked happier than he had in several days. What had he been talking about with Billy out there? Or did night-blooming fungus just really cheer him up that much? 

“Yeah, good job dodging your chores, assholes,” Faraday good-naturedly griped. He still had his conversation with Goodnight on his mind, but he wasn’t going to be doing anything about it until he and Vasquez were alone. For now, back to the drinking and the cards and acting like everything was fine. 

They had their moment late that night, undressing for bed in Billy and Goodnight’s nice little guest room. Both were unusually silent, until suddenly, they both spoke at once. 

“We need to talk,” Vasquez said, just as Faraday turned and said, “Why’d you really wanna come here?” 

Vasquez ran his hand back through his curls, sighing heavily. At least he could answer Joshua’s question and say what he needed to say all at the same time. “I wanted to come here because I needed advice from a friend who I knew would tell me the truth, even if it was not what I wanted to hear.” 

“What, I’m not good enough for giving advice now?” Faraday asked, a half-hearted attempt at joking. He could see it in Alejandro’s eyes: the sadness, the worry, and somewhere beneath all that, a sense of resolve. None of that was anything he wanted to face. 

“Not when you are what I need advice about.” Vasquez gave him a sad half-smile, trying to retain a little good humor even as he steeled himself for the possible heartbreak to come. “So I came to ask Billy, am I being sensible and patient with a man who has been hurt too much and merely fears to state his feelings clearly, or am I a pathetic fool following a man who does not love me and never will?” 

Josh hadn’t thought it could hurt so much to hear it said like that. To see Alejandro so sad, and to know that he had caused it…it was awful. He’d been trying to protect himself, and it had never crossed his mind that he could be hurting Alejandro in the process. It had also never occurred to him just how terribly his attempts at protecting himself had failed, because seeing Ale look like that was like a punch to the gut. The idea of Alejandro believing that about himself, that he was a pathetic fool for staying with Josh, that Josh didn’t love him—that hurt, too. 

“What’d he tell you?” Josh quietly asked. 

“He said the person to be asking that question was you, not him. So tell me, Joshua: do you love me?” 

Why was it so goddamn hard to say? Three little words, that was all he needed to keep Alejandro Vasquez in his life. He just had to say them, and yet Josh felt his throat closing up, like his overprotective brain was trying to choke him out to protect his over-stupid heart. 

But what even was there to lose anymore? He’d kept silent out of fear, trying to guard against the day Ale left him. If he kept silent now, though, that was exactly what he was going to get: Ale walking out of his life forever. He’d be just as heartbroken and alone, and “at least he’d never know he hurt me” sounded like cold comfort and no consolation at all. 

“Yes,” he finally managed to whisper. “I love you.” 

At last, a real smile came to Alejandro’s face, and he stepped in to hug Joshua tightly. Josh had always done a little better with touch than with words. “Then I will keep being patient,” Alejandro softly said. “That is all I needed to know.”


End file.
